U.S. Chamber to host Dino at D.C. fund-raiser

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., which aims to spend $75 million on 2010 election contests, has signaled its entry into Washington state’s 2010 Senate race.

The U.S. ChamberPAC is sponsoring a July 27 breakfast fundraiser in the nation’s capital for Republican Senate hopeful Dino Rossi.

Political action committees are asked $2,000 to serve as co-hosts, individuals a $1,000 donation. Breaking bread with Rossi will still carry a stiff tariff for regular attendees — $1,000 for PACs, $500 for individuals.

The chamber has been on the battle lines against the Obama administration from day one.

It has mobilized opposition to climate-change legislation and health-care reform. Last week, the chamber’s President and CEO Tom Donohue denounced House-Senate conferees financial-reform plan, which would include a new consumer-protection agency.

“Rather than addressing the core causes of the financial crisis, this bill adds new regulatory agencies to an already antiquated system and grows a bloated, ineffective bureaucracy,” Donohue said in a statement.

Incumbent Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has been outspoken as an advocate of the reform plan. After opposing a Senate draft as too weak, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., signed on last week as a supporter.

Rossi has yet to issue a statement or take a stand on financial reform. State Democrats were quick to pounce on the chamber fund-raiser in an effort to link Rossi to opponents of the legislation.

The chamber has been a behind-the-scenes presence in past Washington election campaigns.

Disguising its role through use of a front group — called the Voter Education Fund — it spent $1.5 million in 2004 on advertising that attacked Deborah Senn, the Democrats’ nominee for state attorney general.

In the same year, the national chamber sent out a hit mailing on 5th District Democratic House hopeful Don Barbieri, although Barbieri was an immediate past president of the Greater Spokane Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber is planning on an aggressive role in 2010.

A watchdog group, the Center for Responsive Politics, carried a recent report from a meeting of the chamber’s elite “Committee of 100” at a resort at Rancho Palos Verdes in California.

Donohoe announced to the meeting that the chamber was increasing its $50 million fund-raising goal for the 2010 elections to $75 million. The target figure would more than double the $36 million spent by the chamber in 2008.

At the Rancho Palos Verdes meeting, Donohoe urged the business community to work in unison to “change the composition” of Congress. He decried President Obama “for his lack of leadership on the economy and in creating jobs and the right atmosphere.”

Sen. Murray does not want for business donors to her re-election campaign.

Microsoft, Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, and Amgen rank among her five biggest donors.